Category Archives: Military

Sequestration To Defense Budget Will Gut Needed Services to Military Servicepeople

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My friend Jeremy Hilton just wrote a compelling piece on the effects the sequestration would have on our nation’s military. I am inclined to agree with him wholeheartedly. The largest part of the cuts will come from the defense budget with the swiftness of a guillotine blade, slashing this and that without any concern for the affect such cuts would have. I am fearful for the needed benefits that service people have that access programs like ECHO, The Demo, Respite and others – who literally could lose everything as a family if these badly relied upon services were eliminate. Please read the article and reach out to your representatives to tell them NO on sequestration!

In Advocacy,

Mike

Click here for the Huffington Post Article…

This is a call to action for all military men and women, the veterans that came before them, and the families that support them both.

On January 2, 2013, the automatic spending cuts written into the Budget Control Act of 2011 (otherwise known as sequestration) will go into effect, amounting to an additional $500 billion in cuts to the defense budget. Sequestration poses an immediate and direct threat to both our nation’s defenses and the people who provide for that defense.

Sequestration would create significant readiness issues, reducing the force by tens of thousands of personnel, freezing compensation, reducing healthcare, and eliminating important family support programs. At an absolutely critical juncture, sequestration has the potential to decimate the all-volunteer force, all because politicians do not want to compromise or make hard decisions.

We understand the sacrifice required of our entire nation in order to reduce our overall deficit and debt. However, this sacrifice should be shared by all. Our nation’s debts should not be primarily laid on the shoulders of those who have already given so much.

The Department of Defense’s leadership has been constantly pushing Congress to take steps to avoid sequestration. Here is but one example:… click on link above to read the rest of the article.

The Berge Family Victory For ABA for All Retirees!

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We are so proud of this family who fought the good fight and won! What a precedent they have set. We have yet to see, ultimately, how Tricare will respond, but suffice to say that RETIREES NOW GET ABA COVERAGE FOR AUTISM!!

Please take a look here and Google on the internet to learn more, especially with AMFAS Facebook page for updates!

In Advocacy,

Mike

Great Article About the Challenges Military Families Face Who Live With Autism

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This article is a great summary of some of the biggest problems military families who live with autism face. Moving from post to post as frequently as we do, especially moving away from those blessed situations where your child is getting every service they need from top-notch providers, is so detrimental to that child’s development. Continuity of care is broken. Another state, school system and fight over a new IEP. Not to mention the stress that change causes to the family dynamic as a whole in this process with moving to a new, unknown area, new boss, new job, new chain of command.

Very, very stressful in a system that needs help desperately for the tens of thousands of autistic children in the military.

This article from the Huffington Post nails it. I have included the first couple paragraphs, but would encourage you to link over and read the rest of this brief, informative article.

Also, I would like to add that it is great to see an autism warrior advocate like Karen Driscoll working for Autism Speaks now to advocate with Autism Speaks for military families everywhere. I can’t think of anyone better for that position and who can better leverage the resources of Autism Speaks for the benefit of the military community.

In advocacy,

Mike

“Military Parents With Special Needs Kids: Who Makes The Real Sacrifice?”

“This is the best place for you to live. There is an amazing center here that works with autistic kids.”

Encouraging words. No one could have known that these words were the last thing I wanted to hear.

It was 2004 and I was living in Sacramento. My 3-year-old son had just been diagnosed with autism. The MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis was hailed as one of the world’s premiere autism research institutes. Everyone I met conveyed the same sentiment — the MIND Institute could single-handedly heal my son.

Something else was going on in 2004; a war. We had not expected to move that year but the needs of the military changed those plans. Just as my son was diagnosed, we received orders to a military base located in an isolated and economically depressed area of Southeast California. My husband would deploy to Iraq a few months after our move. The MIND Institute would do nothing for us…. click here to get the rest of the article

To Change Tricare, ECHO and EFMP We’ll Need to Document the Facts

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It’s no secret that it requires a great amount of patience, emotional intelligence and great follow-up skills when submitting documentation for services for your autistic child. Tricare overall is a good health care plan, but when it comes to the accuracy and efficiency of getting services for our autistic children it falls short of the mark.

In order to help facilitate change it is time for all of us within the military autism community to start factually documenting and then aggregate our problematic experiences with these organizations over a certain period of time. I would suggest a 6-month period.

Here is the simplicity of what I am suggesting:

1) Get a notebook binder – something you can easily take notes in to document your efforts from start to finish.
2) Every time you submit documentation to Tricare, ECHO, or EFMP (or any organization that you regularly deal with) keep a copy of what you submitted and log in your notebook the day, time and specific person(s) you sent the documentation to. Ask when you will see a result from your submission. How long will it take to fulfill your request?
3) Proactively follow-up on progress of your submission with emails and/or calls and document the day, time you called and who specifically you spoke with. Also, make a note on the progress of your submission. Did they lose it and ask you to submit it again? When you called did you get different guidance or were asked to send additional paperwork that should have been sent the first time you submitted? Document all of this and how the guidance differed from this individual from the last individual. Ask again when you can expect results from your request.
4) Follow-up again with them in a timely matter to check status. And as #3 above, document any inconsistencies, delays the day, time and who specifically you spoke to (first and last names).
5) Continue steps above with every effort of paperwork submission or change in services or programming until one of the following happens: A) You get it resolved and everything is put into place properly, B) You reach a level of frustration and have procured enough documentation to take your complaint to your chain of command to see if they can assist, or C) You are getting nowhere and not it is time to take all of your factual, specific documentation that you have collected over the past months (or perhaps years in some cases, lol) and take your matter up with the Inspector General, or perhaps even your congressman.

We have been guilty of complaining at time about the issues these organizations have. It is difficult not to do with the error-prone system each of these organizations seems to have in place. I contend that the only way to start to help the system get better is to push within. And in order to accomplish that we need FACTS. We need many parents to document the FACTS of the problems, lost documentation, wrong guidance of paperwork, delays, inaccuracies, etc. If we can create a groundswell of documentation from hundreds or even better, thousands of families, who are willing to take the time to get a notebook and document, I believe we will start to effect change in a positive way.

This will take diligence and commitment. But, I can assure you that when it comes time for resolve, FACTS are what speaks volumes. If you ever go to Due Process with your school district, or file a state complaint, the judge will want to hear the FACTS, not your opinion, conjecture or the like. As Ronald Reagan said, “Facts are pesky little things.” The more we have to push into the face of Tricare, ECHO and EFMP the better the organizations will be forced to comply more efficiently with the needs that all of us in the military autism community have.

In advocacy,

Mike